The Storm
by calaba
Summary: It's said that when there's a big storm, the gap between worlds gets smaller.


It was late when Lani Haluki bounded excitedly out of the 3D-door in the Museum of Large (with a little help from the belt Aaron had made for her) and turned down the family hall to her and Samheed's room. She streaked down the hallway, nearly tumbling past their door in her haste. When she finally skidded to a halt, she took a moment to compose herself. It was almost impossible for her to keep from shouting out and dancing around in excitement. After several agonizingly slow, deep breaths, she shook out her hand, pressed the handle, and let herself into the dark room.

Their blackboard was shushed again, Lani noticed as she crept by it, and smiled to herself when she thought of what Stuart had done to irritate Sam this time. With trembling fingers, she pushed open the door to their bedroom and hopped breathlessly onto the soft covers.

"Sam!" She whispered, shaking his shoulder. He was asleep on his stomach, his arms under his pillow, his face turned away from her. "Sam!" She hissed again when he didn't move.

"Mm?" He muttered sleepily at first, but then, as if he were struck by lightning, he suddenly rolled over and sat straight up. "Lani?" He asked worriedly, trying to make her out in the darkness. His hands reached out of their own accord, out of habit searching for hers.

Momentarily forgetting about her excitement, Lani took up his warm fingers in her hands. "I'm right here," she said softly. She watched as the moonlight made his orange eyes glint, and she felt him relax.

They stayed there in the darkness for a moment as their eyes adjusted. They felt each other's pulse in their fingertips, and it calmed their racing hearts. "Sam," Lani said finally, and leaned over to switch on a bedside lamp. It illuminated the room in a soft, golden glow, and it nearly made Lani laugh when she caught sight of Samheed's rumpled hair.

"I finished it," she told him instead.

"What?"

"I finished the books. All seven of them. Just a couple minutes ago."

Samheed breathed a sigh of relief. "And here I was thinking it was something serious," he said, somewhat reproachfully.

Lani punched his shoulder, her other hand still entangled with his. "This _is_ important!"

Samheed rolled his eyes, but he couldn't help the smile that grew on his face at the impassioned look on hers. "I still need to proofread and preserve the pages and everything, but all the content's there. I'm sure I didn't get all the conversations right, but I tried to remember the exact words the best I could, and the core of it is the truth."

Samheed reached out subconsciously and brushed a strand of long, black hair away from her face. "Just think of it, Sam," she went on, oblivious. "All of our stories are finally immortalized." She thought for a moment, her eyes bright. "Maybe I can get Alex to draw cover designs. And I think I'm going to have a penname. That way it'll seem less auto-biographical."

"But everyone will know it was you who wrote them," Samheed pointed out. "You won't shut up about it."

Lani punched him again. "Not everyone."

Samheed caught the mischievous glint in her eye. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think I'll have the first name start with the same letter," Lani ignored him. "But everything else will be different."

He looked at her, and she suddenly smiled. "Sam," she whispered breathlessly. "Think about it. No one will ever forget what happened here. That's for sure now. These books might help us learn from our past and avoid the same mistakes we made before. And maybe it can help other people, too. People who think they're not creative. People who live somewhere like Quill – where they're afraid to be themselves. People who think they don't have worth because they're different." Her voice quieted. "People who don't know that feeling like an Unwanted is okay."

Samheed answered in the same quiet voice, "where are you going to find people like that?"

Lani flashed him a sad, thoughtful smile, but didn't respond.

"You have something in mind, don't you?" Samheed asked suspiciously, but when she didn't respond again, he dropped it.

Instead, he wrapped his muscular arms around her and brought her to his chest. "You did it, Lani," he muttered into her hair. She never would get tired of hearing his husky voice against her skin. It brought back a flood of images, of a cold, black cave and an army of pirates. It had never truly seemed over until this moment. She was surprised to feel tears brimming on her lashes. She hugged him back as he tightened his grip on her.

"We really did, didn't we?" She responded, her voice thick. Neither of them was thinking of the books.

* * *

Several months after Lani had finished her manuscripts, Artimé experienced one of the worst storms it had ever seen – and that was really something, as a sizable amount of its inhabitants had lived through a never ending-hurricane.

Alex had tried his best to fend it off with elemental magic, but it hadn't made much of a dent. And so once he realized that it wan't going to skirt around the mansion like most storms did, the Head Mage started to take precautions. The windows were boarded up and the ships were pulled ashore. Sandbags lined the lagoon in the hope of lessening the flooding (as the Artiméans were unwilling to build a wall even for a day or two), and most of the people of Quill came to stay in the mansion for a couple of days to wait it out, as it was the most sturdy structure on the whole island.

The jungle animals were also warned of the impending storm, and Alex built them a large, underground shelter in case any of them wished for the extra protection. He had also directed Spike, Karkinos, and the other aquatic citizens to take refuge near the abandoned Island of Fire (its inhabitants had long ago been rescued and accepted as Artiméans), outside of the storm's reach, for a while.

On the night of the storm, most everyone was packed into the lounge, watching from a single un-boarded window as the usually starry sky clouded over and sizzled to life. The lounge band played extra loud that night, but it still was not enough to cover up the howling of the wind.

As his people huddled below, the Head Mage, along with Simber and Sky, stood on the balcony from his office, facing the ocean. They stood behind the glass as it was pelted with rain, and they squinted to see out into the choppy water.

"I hope you're wrong," Alex said worriedly, gazing out into storm. It had been Sky's idea to be on alert for any castaways caught in the tempest and to be ready if anyone – from the sea or the sky – crash-landed on their shores and needed help. She remembered all too well the terror of being at the ocean's mercy.

She slipped her cool hand in his. "Me too."

As the storm began to pick up in earnest and the mansion hummed against the wind, Simber's head turned suddenly to the right, where the shore of Artimé was just visible.

"What is it, Sim?" Alex asked, pressing his face to the glass, his heart pounding in his chest.

Simber growled agitatedly. "It's prrrobably nothing," he rumbled. "But I thought I just saw Lani Haluki out of the corner of my eye."

* * *

Simber's eyes had not fooled him. Indeed, down at the shore, struggling against the wind that threatened to pull her off her inoperative feet, Lani stood near the waves, clutching a large stack of what looked to be paper, against her chest. Her long hair whipped about her face, and her fingers trembled against the cold. She squinted up into the roiling sky as lightning flashed around her, and she sank to her knees into the chilled sand.

Wordlessly, as the waves inched ever closer up the beach, she held the stack of books up into the sky above her head. For a moment, nothing happened. The books were still heavy in her hands, and her arms trembled under their weight, trying to keep them from tumbling over. As the sky ripped open around her, she thought that maybe this had been a mistake after all. She almost laughed at the thought of dying out here for nothing, after everything that had happened.

But then the weight lessened, and above the crashing of the waves and the booming of thunder, there was the papery sound of preserved pages, flipping wildly over one another as they lifted into the sky. Breathless, Lani dared to look up as the last book left her fingertips. All seven of them were being tossed like tumbleweeds in the air, but they were steadily rising up and up and up, almost inexplicably against gravity.

"Yes!" She cried, her voice hoarse, just before a very large, very feline, and very angry statue descended from the sky and caught her in his paws.

* * *

She came to in the warmth of the hospital wing under the worried gazes of several people. She saw Alex straight away, his knuckles white as he gripped the frame of her bed. Her brother was also there, looking worriedly between Lani and the Head Mage.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid." She recognized Samheed's voice immediately. He sat in a chair on her right, her fingers crushed in his. There were angry tears shining in his eyes.

"Sam," she croaked.

"You're so stupid!" Samheed roared, his joy mingling with frustration and escaping as anger. "What if _you_ had been taken up by the storm? What then? What do you even hope to accomplish? No one there will believe it."

Lani suddenly felt very drowsy. She gripped tighter onto Samheed's hand, a twinge of guilt growing in her stomach. But it wasn't enough to quell the enormous feeling of satisfaction that warmed her body from head to waist.

"Good," she whispered, fighting against sleep. "It's better if they think it's fiction. Sometimes the things that seem the least true are the most real."

And as Lani Haluki fell asleep under the relieved, watchful eyes of her friends and family, a rather adventurous little boy crouched by the rocks on a very different shore. He reached out into the water and took a single book into his sandy hands, perplexed by how dry it seemed. He frowned at the title, but sat back against the rocks anyway. And when he opened it, the world opened, too.

 **(A/N: Thank you so much for taking the time to read. I'm very grateful for this book series. It hit me real good when I read the first book a couple of years ago, and I have the feeling that it was (and still is) very important. Anyway, as always, thoughts and criticism are greatly appreciated - thanks again for reading, and have a wonderful day!)**


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